Space Mechanic | Today’s Space News
Astronomy Daily — S05E147: "Space Mechanic" Wednesday 22 July 2026 A spacecraft with robotic arms is on its way to geostationary orbit to keep other satellites alive. A discarded rocket stage is two weeks out from hitting the Moon, and twenty-three astronomers have just asked the world to watch. Plus the first binary star system where both stars exploded, the first complete magnetic map of a galaxy cluster, and the asteroid breakup that may have bombarded three worlds while Earth froze. In This Episode ● The Space Mechanic Launches — Northrop Grumman's Mission Robotic Vehicle lifted off from Cape Canaveral on 21 July carrying three Mission Extension Pods. With two 3-metre robotic arms built by the US Naval Research Laboratory, it is designed to inspect, relocate, repair and refuel satellites in geostationary orbit. Each pod can give a 2,000 kg satellite up to eight more years of life. ● UPDATE — The Rocket Aimed at the Moon — A new arXiv preprint signed by 23 astronomers calls for a coordinated observing campaign when Falcon 9 upper stage 2025-010D strikes the Moon near Einstein crater on 5 August. North America has the best seat: 2:34am EDT, with the paper naming observers in the Americas as the ideal group. Refined impact time, predicted crater size, and why the ejecta plume may be visible even if the flash is not. ● Sibling Supernovae — Sixteen years of Fermi data reveal a faint supernova remnant hiding in the glare of the Jellyfish Nebula. The two may be the first known pair of remnants traced back to a single binary star system. ● Mapping a Cluster's Magnetic Field — Using the deepest radio observations ever made with LOFAR, astronomers have reconstructed the magnetic field of galaxy cluster Abell 2255 from nucleus to outer edge for the first time. ● The Eulalia Bombardment — A new Planetary Science Journal paper links the breakup of a main-belt asteroid to an impact shower that battered the Moon, Earth and Mars 800 million years ago — and may connect to a global freeze. ● Skywatch, Both Hemispheres — Why this week beats peak night for the Delta Aquariids wherever you are, how to catch them from the southern US and Mediterranean, and what's coming on 12 August: a total solar eclipse across Iceland and Spain, a North American partial, and the best Perseid peak in years on a new Moon.
Sources & Further Reading ● Space.com — SpaceX launches satellite repair drone with 10-foot robotic arms to Earth orbit ● NASASpaceflight.com — Falcon 9 to launch MRV-1 robotic servicing spacecraft for Northrop Grumman ● Northrop Grumman SpaceLogistics — Mission Robotic Vehicle and Mission Extension Pod fact sheets ● Scientific American — A SpaceX rocket is about to crash into the moon; scientists will be watching ● Phys.org — When a SpaceX rocket crashes into the moon, scientists will be watching (arXiv preprint) ● Project Pluto (Bill Gray) — Upper stage impacting the moon on 2026 August 5 ● Stanford University — Researchers uncover evidence for sibling supernovas (Michailidis et al., Nature Communications) ● Reuters — Scientists spot evidence of two huge companion stars that blew up ● Space.com — Galaxy cluster's magnetic field reconstructed for 1st time with record-breaking astronomy map (Botteon et al., INAF, A&A) ● Southwest Research Institute — SwRI-led research connects asteroid collision to impact showers 800 million years ago ● The Planetary Science Journal — Bottke, Vokrouhlický, Dykhuis & Zellner, "An 800 Myr-old Impact Shower on the Terrestrial Planets from the Breakup of the Eulalia Parent Body" ● EarthSky — Delta Aquariid meteor shower: all you need to know in 2026 ● NASA Science — Total Solar Eclipse on August 12, 2026 (path, partial visibility and safety guidance) ● BBC Sky at Night Magazine — August 12, 2026 solar eclipse: USA and Canada guide Connect ● Website: astronomydaily.io (http://astronomydaily.io) ● Socials: @AstroDailyPod ● Part of the Bitesz.com Podcast Network
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Kind: captions
Language: en
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Somewhere above your head right now,
00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:07.349
about 36,000 km up, there is a graveyard
00:00:07.359 --> 00:00:10.470
shift going on. Hundreds of satellites
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still working, still useful, and slowly
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running out of fuel.
00:00:15.519 --> 00:00:17.990
>> And as of last night, there is finally a
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mechanic on the way.
00:00:19.439 --> 00:00:21.830
>> Good evening and welcome to Astronomy
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Daily. I'm Anna.
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>> And I'm Avery. Coming up, a spacecraft
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with arms launches on a mission to keep
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other spacecraft alive. A rocket stage
00:00:31.439 --> 00:00:33.430
is two weeks out from hitting the moon,
00:00:33.440 --> 00:00:35.510
and astronomers have just put out a call
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to arms about it.
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>> We've got two stars that were born
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together, lived together, and then died
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in sequence, leaving behind the first
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pair of supernova remnants ever traced
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back to a single binary. the first
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complete magnetic map of a galaxy
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cluster, an asteroid breakup that may
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have bombarded three worlds and helped
00:00:56.719 --> 00:00:58.150
freeze our own,
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>> and a skywatching window that is closing
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faster than you'd like.
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>> Let's get into it.
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>> So, Avery, here's a problem that has
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quietly bothered the satellite industry
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for about 60 years. You build a
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satellite. You spend hundreds of
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millions of dollars on it. You put it in
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geostationary orbit 35,786
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km up where it hovers over the same
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patch of ground forever and it works
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beautifully for 15 years and then it
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runs out of fuel
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>> and that's it. The hardware is fine.
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>> The hardware is often perfectly fine.
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The cameras work, the transponders work,
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the solar panels work, but without
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propellant, it can't hold its position.
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So, it drifts and it becomes junk. You
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throw away a working satellite because
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the tank is empty.
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>> That is a spectacularly wasteful way to
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run an industry.
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>> It is. And last night, Northre Grumman
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launched the most serious attempt yet to
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fix it. At 5:15 in the evening, Eastern
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time on Tuesday the 21st of July, the
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Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch
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Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral carrying
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the mission robotic vehicle plus three
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mission extension pods.
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>> Mission robotic vehicle. What does it
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actually look like? Picture a satellite
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bus with two arms, two robotic arms,
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each about 3 m long, 10 ft, built by the
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United States Naval Research Laboratory
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and supplied through DARPA's robotic
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servicing of geostationary satellite
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program.
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>> So this is a genuinely dextrous machine,
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not just the tug that bolts on.
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>> That's the distinction that matters. The
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MRV can inspect, it can relocate, it can
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repair, it can upgrade, and its headline
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job on this mission is to pick up those
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three mission extension pods and install
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them on client satellites that are
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running low on propellant.
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>> So, the pods are the actual fuel
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solution.
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>> Think of them as jetpacks. Each pod
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clamps onto a satellite and takes over
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orbit control and momentum management
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using electric propulsion. Each one can
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handle a satellite of about 2,000 kg.
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That's a typical big geostationary bird.
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And give it up to 8 more years of life.
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>> 8 years on a satellite that was
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otherwise finished.
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>> 8 years. And the MRV itself carries
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something called a passive refueling
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interface, which is the first refueling
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interface approved by the US Space
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Force. So, the servicer is itself
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designed to be refueled later.
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>> Now, Northrub have done a version of
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this before, haven't they?
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>> They have, and this is why they're the
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ones doing it. Bish extension vehicle 1
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launched in October 2019. The first
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commercial satellite servicing
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spacecraft ever. And 4 months later, it
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docked with communication satellite
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Intelsat 901 in geostationary orbit.
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MEV2 followed in August 2020.
00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:14.949
>> So what's different this time?
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>> Those earlier vehicles were one to one.
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One serer went to one satellite, docked
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with it, and stayed there doing the work
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itself. The MRV is one to many. It
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carries pods, installs them, and moves
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on. It's the difference between a tow
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truck that has to stay attached to your
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car forever and a mechanic who fits a
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new part and drives off to the next job.
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That scales.
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>> That scales. And there's a nice detail
00:04:43.280 --> 00:04:45.990
on the launch itself. The Falcon 9
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booster B1069
00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:51.749
was flying its 302nd mission and it was
00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:54.390
deliberately expended. No landing.
00:04:54.400 --> 00:04:56.710
>> Why give up a booster with 31 flights on
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it? Because GEO's stationary transfer
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orbit is demanding. Getting that much
00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:04.629
mass that high needed every bit of
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performance the rocket had. And there
00:05:06.880 --> 00:05:08.629
wasn't propellant left for a landing
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burn. SpaceX made the trade.
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>> So when does the actual servicing start?
00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:16.150
>> Not for a while. The MRV and the three
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pods each separate and then climb to
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geostationary orbit under their own
00:05:21.440 --> 00:05:23.990
solar electric propulsion. And that
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climb takes up to a year. Servicing
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operations are expected to begin in
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2027. After the initial checkouts, the
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RSGS program gets handed over to the US
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Space Force.
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>> A year of just going up
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>> slowly and efficiently. Electric
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propulsion is patient. And at the end of
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it, for the first time, there's a repair
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capability parked permanently in the
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most valuable orbital real estate we
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have.
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>> Right. From a machine built to preserve
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spacecraft to a spacecraft that is about
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to be very thoroughly destroyed.
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>> This is one we've been tracking.
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>> It is. And I want to be upfront about
00:06:02.560 --> 00:06:05.110
that. We covered this back in June in
00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:08.150
episode 125. But there is a genuine
00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:10.230
reason to come back to it because the
00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:11.830
science community has just done
00:06:11.840 --> 00:06:13.909
something about it. The short version
00:06:13.919 --> 00:06:17.029
for anyone joining us since in January
00:06:17.039 --> 00:06:20.790
2025, a Falcon 9 launched two commercial
00:06:20.800 --> 00:06:24.230
lunar landers, Fireflyy's Blue Ghost and
00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:28.150
iSpace's Hakuto R Mission 2. It did its
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job, but the upper stage cataloged as
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202510D
00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:37.350
never came home. Instead of burning up
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in our atmosphere, it ended up in a long
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looping orbit through the Earth Moon
00:06:42.400 --> 00:06:44.629
system. And somebody noticed.
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>> The independent astronomer Bill Gray,
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who runs Project Pluto and tracks this
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sort of high orbit debris, his software
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flagged an impact. On the 5th of August
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this year, that stage hits the moon.
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>> So, what's new? Three things. First, a
00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:03.749
new preprint has just gone up on archive
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and it is signed by 23 astronomers. It
00:07:06.960 --> 00:07:09.749
is essentially a call to arms. They're
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asking the scientific community,
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professional and amateur, to point
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everything they've got at the moon on
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the 5th of August
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>> because this is a rare thing
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>> because we almost never get this. We get
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natural impacts on the moon all the
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time, but we don't know when they're
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coming. Here, we know the object. We
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know its mass. We know its structure. We
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know its velocity. And we know the time
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to within about a second. That is an
00:07:35.919 --> 00:07:38.309
artificial impact experiment we didn't
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have to pay to set up.
00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:41.589
>> And the timing has been tightened,
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hasn't it?
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>> That's a second. You think Gray's latest
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published calculation dated the 17th of
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July puts the impact at 634 and 32
00:07:51.039 --> 00:07:53.909
seconds UTC. Earlier coverage back in
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May was quoting 644. So, if you've got
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the old number written down, update it.
00:07:59.520 --> 00:08:00.629
>> And the third,
00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:02.790
>> the third is the actual physics
00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:05.189
prediction. And this is the part I find
00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:07.830
genuinely interesting. The paper models
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what happens on contact. This thing is
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roughly 12 m long and about 4,000 kg.
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And crucially, it's hollow. It's a tank.
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So, the prediction is that it crushes
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rather than punching deep.
00:08:21.599 --> 00:08:24.150
>> Like a can rather than a bullet.
00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:26.869
>> Exactly like a can. And the result of
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that is a relatively shallow crater.
00:08:29.280 --> 00:08:31.350
They're estimating 20 to 30 meters
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across, but a very large eject plume.
00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:37.269
Kilometers of debris thrown up off the
00:08:37.279 --> 00:08:38.230
surface.
00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:40.630
>> So, the plume might be the visible part.
00:08:40.640 --> 00:08:42.709
>> That's the hope. And it's a subtle bit
00:08:42.719 --> 00:08:45.030
of reasoning. The impact site is near
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the crater Einstein, right on the moon's
00:08:47.440 --> 00:08:49.990
western limb, about the 10:00 position
00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:52.310
on the disc as you look at it. Now,
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that's awkward because it's on the
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sunlit part of the surface and no impact
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flash, artificial or natural, has ever
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been recorded on the lit face of the
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moon. The glare defeats you,
00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.070
>> but being on the limb helps.
00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:08.470
>> Being on the limb might save it because
00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:10.470
rocks thrown up from a site that close
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to the edge rise off the moon entirely.
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And once they're off the limb, they're
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silhouetted against black sky catching
00:09:17.519 --> 00:09:19.509
sunlight. So you might not see the
00:09:19.519 --> 00:09:21.829
flash, but you might see the plume.
00:09:21.839 --> 00:09:23.269
>> Who else is watching?
00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:25.430
>> NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will
00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:28.150
image the site before and after, which
00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:30.310
gives a clean comparison. And South
00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:32.389
Korea's Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter is
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going to attempt to observe as well.
00:09:34.399 --> 00:09:36.230
There's precedent for the after image,
00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:38.630
too. When a Chinese rocket stage hit the
00:09:38.640 --> 00:09:41.910
far side in 2022, LRO found the site,
00:09:41.920 --> 00:09:44.870
and it had made not one crater, but two.
00:09:44.880 --> 00:09:46.949
>> And there's a longer term payoff to all
00:09:46.959 --> 00:09:49.590
this. And this is why the paper matters
00:09:49.600 --> 00:09:51.910
beyond the spectacle. They want to test
00:09:51.920 --> 00:09:54.230
a method for pinpointing exactly where
00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:56.230
an object strikes the moon using the
00:09:56.240 --> 00:09:58.630
observations. If you can nail that down
00:09:58.640 --> 00:10:01.350
against a known impact, you validated a
00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:03.829
technique and that feeds directly into
00:10:03.839 --> 00:10:05.750
planning seismic experiments on the
00:10:05.760 --> 00:10:07.910
lunar surface for future missions.
00:10:07.920 --> 00:10:10.070
>> Now, the practical question, who
00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:12.389
actually gets to see this? And this is
00:10:12.399 --> 00:10:14.310
where our North American listeners want
00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:16.710
to pay attention because this one is
00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:20.630
squarely yours. 6:34 UTC on the 5th of
00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:23.110
August is 29 minutes past 2:00 in the
00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:26.470
morning Eastern time, 1:34 central,
00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:29.190
12:34 Mountain, and on the West Coast,
00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:31.910
it's still the night before, 11:34 in
00:10:31.920 --> 00:10:33.829
the evening on the 4th.
00:10:33.839 --> 00:10:35.430
>> Middle of the night, but the moon is
00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.829
well up. The moon is wellplaced across
00:10:37.839 --> 00:10:40.310
the continent and the paper specifically
00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:42.630
identifies observers in the Americas as
00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:45.190
the ideal group. If you have a telescope
00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:47.190
and you've ever wanted to contribute to
00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:49.910
something real, this is the night. They
00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:52.150
are explicitly asking amateurs to take
00:10:52.160 --> 00:10:52.790
part.
00:10:52.800 --> 00:10:54.710
>> And for those of us further around the
00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:55.590
globe,
00:10:55.600 --> 00:10:57.430
>> less kind, and I'll be straight about
00:10:57.440 --> 00:11:00.470
it. For us in Australia, that's 4:34 in
00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:02.870
the afternoon. Broad daylight. New
00:11:02.880 --> 00:11:05.670
Zealand, early evening, no good either.
00:11:05.680 --> 00:11:08.230
The UK and Europe get half 7 in the
00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:10.630
morning which is also daylight. So the
00:11:10.640 --> 00:11:13.110
live event belongs to the Americas.
00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:15.509
>> But the aftermath belongs to everyone.
00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:17.990
>> The aftermath belongs to everyone. The
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.710
LRO before and after imagery, the crater
00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:23.030
measurements, the analysis of how well
00:11:23.040 --> 00:11:25.269
the predictions held up. And frankly,
00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:27.030
the question sitting underneath all of
00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:29.350
this is global. We are about to start
00:11:29.360 --> 00:11:31.750
putting people back on the moon. and we
00:11:31.760 --> 00:11:33.509
are currently hitting it with our own
00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:36.230
rubbish by accident without warning.
00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:38.790
>> All right, Avery, moving on to our next
00:11:38.800 --> 00:11:41.750
story. More than half of all stars are
00:11:41.760 --> 00:11:44.870
in multiple systems, two or more suns
00:11:44.880 --> 00:11:47.269
orbiting each other. And for the really
00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:49.509
massive stars, the ones destined to
00:11:49.519 --> 00:11:52.949
explode, that fraction is even higher.
00:11:52.959 --> 00:11:54.949
>> So most supernovas should have had a
00:11:54.959 --> 00:11:55.750
sibling.
00:11:55.760 --> 00:11:58.550
>> That is exactly the implication. And yet
00:11:58.560 --> 00:12:01.110
until this week, astronomers had never
00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:03.430
found a single case where both stars in
00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:06.470
a binary exploded and both left behind
00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:08.310
remnants we can still see.
00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:10.470
>> Not one out of how many?
00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.110
>> We've cataloged around 300 supernova
00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:15.430
remnants in our galaxy. Not one
00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:17.590
confirmed sibling pair. And the reason
00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:19.990
is a bit embarrassing actually. One of
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.230
them was probably sitting in plain sight
00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:23.350
the whole time.
00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:28.150
>> Go on. The Jellyfish Nebula IC 443 in
00:12:28.160 --> 00:12:31.190
the constellation Gemini about 6,000
00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:33.670
lighty years away. It is one of the best
00:12:33.680 --> 00:12:36.150
studied supernova remnants in the sky
00:12:36.160 --> 00:12:38.069
and one of the brightest gamma ray
00:12:38.079 --> 00:12:40.629
sources of its kind. If you could see it
00:12:40.639 --> 00:12:42.790
with your eye, it would look bigger than
00:12:42.800 --> 00:12:44.150
the full moon.
00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:46.710
>> And something was hiding behind it.
00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:49.030
>> Next to it, there's a much fainter
00:12:49.040 --> 00:12:52.069
object called G189.6
00:12:52.079 --> 00:12:55.910
+ 3. It was first picked up in 1994 by
00:12:55.920 --> 00:12:58.870
the German ROSAT satellite as a faint
00:12:58.880 --> 00:13:01.829
X-ray glow and later the Russian German
00:13:01.839 --> 00:13:04.790
Spectrum Ronkin Gamma Observatory saw
00:13:04.800 --> 00:13:06.550
shell-like structures in it which
00:13:06.560 --> 00:13:08.870
suggested it was also a supernova
00:13:08.880 --> 00:13:11.750
remnant but it sits right up against the
00:13:11.760 --> 00:13:14.389
glare of the jellyfish and that glare
00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:15.509
drowns it.
00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:18.310
>> So how did they finally separate them?
00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:21.430
16 years of data from NASA's Fermy Gamma
00:13:21.440 --> 00:13:24.230
Ray Space Telescope. The team led by
00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:27.590
Miltiadis Malites, a post-doal fellow at
00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:30.069
Stanford, essentially subtracted the
00:13:30.079 --> 00:13:32.870
jellyfish out, isolated its gammaray
00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:34.790
emission, and looked at what was left
00:13:34.800 --> 00:13:35.910
underneath.
00:13:35.920 --> 00:13:37.590
>> And there was something left.
00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:40.150
>> There was G189.6
00:13:40.160 --> 00:13:43.430
6 + 3 is independently producing gamma
00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:46.150
rays which matters enormously because
00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:48.790
gamma rays mean particle acceleration
00:13:48.800 --> 00:13:50.949
and particle acceleration is what a
00:13:50.959 --> 00:13:53.509
supernova remnant does. It's the shock
00:13:53.519 --> 00:13:54.870
wave doing work.
00:13:54.880 --> 00:13:57.110
>> Ma's had a nice way of putting that,
00:13:57.120 --> 00:13:57.829
didn't he?
00:13:57.839 --> 00:14:00.069
>> He compared it to a drop of water
00:14:00.079 --> 00:14:02.629
falling on a still lake. The ripples
00:14:02.639 --> 00:14:05.110
spread out from the point of contact. A
00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:07.509
supernova remnant does exactly the same
00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:09.910
thing. And if you can see the ripples,
00:14:09.920 --> 00:14:11.910
you know something dropped.
00:14:11.920 --> 00:14:14.150
>> So, we have two remnants next to each
00:14:14.160 --> 00:14:16.069
other. How do we know they're related
00:14:16.079 --> 00:14:17.990
rather than just an accident of line of
00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:18.629
sight?
00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:20.949
>> This is the elegant part. There's a
00:14:20.959 --> 00:14:23.590
filament of gas arcing between them. And
00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:25.670
that filament is where the shock wave
00:14:25.680 --> 00:14:27.829
from G189.6
00:14:27.839 --> 00:14:30.949
+ 3 has slammed into the same molecular
00:14:30.959 --> 00:14:33.030
cloud that the jellyfish is pushing
00:14:33.040 --> 00:14:33.990
against.
00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:36.550
>> Same cloud. So, same distance.
00:14:36.560 --> 00:14:38.870
>> Same cloud. same distance, same
00:14:38.880 --> 00:14:41.189
neighborhood. They're not one in front
00:14:41.199 --> 00:14:43.509
of the other. They're genuinely next
00:14:43.519 --> 00:14:45.509
door to each other. And that's what
00:14:45.519 --> 00:14:48.069
makes the shared origin story credible.
00:14:48.079 --> 00:14:49.829
>> So, walk me through the story they're
00:14:49.839 --> 00:14:50.550
proposing.
00:14:50.560 --> 00:14:53.509
>> A tale of two massive stars born
00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:55.910
together, gravitationally bound,
00:14:55.920 --> 00:14:59.030
orbiting extremely closely, perhaps only
00:14:59.040 --> 00:15:01.350
a few times the Earth's sun distance
00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:04.069
apart. Close enough that material was
00:15:04.079 --> 00:15:06.550
likely flowing from one to the other.
00:15:06.560 --> 00:15:08.710
And then the bigger one runs out of fuel
00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:10.150
and detonates.
00:15:10.160 --> 00:15:11.990
>> And the explosion breaks the
00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:12.949
partnership.
00:15:12.959 --> 00:15:15.269
>> The explosion breaks the partnership.
00:15:15.279 --> 00:15:17.590
The binary is disrupted and the
00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:19.750
surviving companion is essentially
00:15:19.760 --> 00:15:22.470
kicked, flung off through the galaxy on
00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:25.350
its own. It keeps traveling and tens of
00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:27.750
thousands of years later, it explodes,
00:15:27.760 --> 00:15:28.470
too.
00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:30.550
>> How far apart did they end up? The
00:15:30.560 --> 00:15:33.110
centers of the two explosions are now
00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:35.829
somewhere between 30 and 50 light years
00:15:35.839 --> 00:15:38.389
apart. Two stars that were once close
00:15:38.399 --> 00:15:40.949
enough to be exchanging material now
00:15:40.959 --> 00:15:43.829
separated by that gap and each marked by
00:15:43.839 --> 00:15:45.910
its own expanding shell.
00:15:45.920 --> 00:15:46.949
>> What were they?
00:15:46.959 --> 00:15:49.189
>> The jellyfish's progenitor is thought to
00:15:49.199 --> 00:15:52.310
have been something like 15 to 25 times
00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:55.030
the mass of the sun. Its companion at
00:15:55.040 --> 00:15:58.230
least 20. both were probably tens of
00:15:58.240 --> 00:16:00.389
thousands times more luminous than the
00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:03.749
sun and both may now be neutron stars
00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:05.910
>> and publication status because I know
00:16:05.920 --> 00:16:07.749
this was previewed at a conference.
00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:10.470
>> Good flag. Milti presented the results
00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:12.710
at the American Astronomical Society
00:16:12.720 --> 00:16:15.350
meeting in Pasadena back in June. What's
00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:17.269
happened this week is the peer-reviewed
00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:19.670
paper. It's in Nature Communications
00:16:19.680 --> 00:16:21.749
with the Stanford release and wider
00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:24.069
coverage landing on the 21st.
00:16:24.079 --> 00:16:26.470
>> And one for our listeners. Can we go and
00:16:26.480 --> 00:16:27.749
look at any of this?
00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:30.550
>> Not this month, wherever you are. Gemini
00:16:30.560 --> 00:16:32.870
is close to the sun at the moment, so
00:16:32.880 --> 00:16:35.670
it's lost in the glare globally, but it
00:16:35.680 --> 00:16:37.910
comes back. And this is one where our
00:16:37.920 --> 00:16:39.670
northern hemisphere listeners get the
00:16:39.680 --> 00:16:41.990
better deal. From North America and
00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:44.710
Europe, Gemini rides high overhead
00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:47.590
through winter, December into March, and
00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:49.829
the jellyfish sits beautifully placed
00:16:49.839 --> 00:16:53.030
for a telescope or a long exposure. And
00:16:53.040 --> 00:16:54.230
from down here,
00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:56.550
>> we still get it just lower. From
00:16:56.560 --> 00:16:58.949
Australia and New Zealand, Gemini comes
00:16:58.959 --> 00:17:00.870
up in the northern sky through our
00:17:00.880 --> 00:17:03.590
summer. Visible, worth hunting, but
00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:06.069
closer to the horizon. Either way, put
00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:07.909
it on the list for the end of the year.
00:17:07.919 --> 00:17:09.990
And bear in mind, the jellyfish is
00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:12.069
faint. It would be bigger than the full
00:17:12.079 --> 00:17:14.150
moon if your eye could pick it up, but
00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:16.069
it needs photography or a decent
00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:18.710
aperture to show itself. Anna, here's
00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:20.789
something we know exists, but have never
00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:23.429
actually been able to draw. Galaxy
00:17:23.439 --> 00:17:25.990
clusters. The largest gravitationally
00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:28.150
bound structures in the universe.
00:17:28.160 --> 00:17:30.870
Hundreds or thousands of galaxies plus
00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:33.430
enormous clouds of hot gas plus dark
00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:35.830
matter are threaded through with
00:17:35.840 --> 00:17:37.350
magnetic fields.
00:17:37.360 --> 00:17:39.430
>> We've known that for decades.
00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:41.750
>> What we have never done is map the shape
00:17:41.760 --> 00:17:44.710
of one across an entire cluster from the
00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:47.110
middle right out to the edge. And now
00:17:47.120 --> 00:17:48.230
somebody has
00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:51.190
>> a team led by Andrea Bhuton at INAF,
00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:53.669
Italy's National Astrophysics Institute
00:17:53.679 --> 00:17:55.990
has reconstructed the magnetic field of
00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:59.669
galaxy cluster Abel 2255. And I want to
00:17:59.679 --> 00:18:01.590
be precise about that name because at
00:18:01.600 --> 00:18:03.669
least one outlet has got it wrong this
00:18:03.679 --> 00:18:08.150
week and called it Abel 2142. It is Abel
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:09.830
2255
00:18:09.840 --> 00:18:11.909
about a billion lighty years away.
00:18:11.919 --> 00:18:13.350
>> Why that cluster?
00:18:13.360 --> 00:18:15.990
>> Because it's famously messy in radio.
00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:19.029
Abel 2255 has long been known for its
00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:21.029
complexity. It's full of strange
00:18:21.039 --> 00:18:23.350
diffused radio structures, halos, and
00:18:23.360 --> 00:18:25.510
filaments, which is exactly what you
00:18:25.520 --> 00:18:27.270
want if you're trying to trace magnetic
00:18:27.280 --> 00:18:29.510
fields because those structures are made
00:18:29.520 --> 00:18:32.150
by energetic electrons spiraling along
00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:33.430
magnetic lines.
00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:35.830
>> So the radio emission is the field
00:18:35.840 --> 00:18:37.590
effectively made visible.
00:18:37.600 --> 00:18:40.390
>> It's the tracer. Electrons corkcrewing
00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:42.710
along magnetic lines give off radio
00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:44.789
waves. So if you can see the emission
00:18:44.799 --> 00:18:47.110
finely enough, you can work backwards to
00:18:47.120 --> 00:18:49.430
the field. The problem has always been
00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:51.669
that these signals are extraordinarily
00:18:51.679 --> 00:18:52.470
faint.
00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:54.150
>> What did they observe with?
00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:56.710
>> Loar, the low frequency array, the
00:18:56.720 --> 00:18:58.950
European radio telescope, spread across
00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:01.430
a continent. And these are the deepest
00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:03.990
radio observations ever made of a galaxy
00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:06.230
cluster. That was combined with a new
00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:08.150
data analysis technique. And between
00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:09.909
them, that's what cracked it.
00:19:09.919 --> 00:19:12.310
>> And what does the map show? This is
00:19:12.320 --> 00:19:14.470
defining. In some regions of the
00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:16.789
cluster, the magnetic field lines are
00:19:16.799 --> 00:19:19.350
strikingly coherent. They follow very
00:19:19.360 --> 00:19:21.750
specific directions, stretching radially
00:19:21.760 --> 00:19:23.669
outward along the extended radial
00:19:23.679 --> 00:19:25.830
structures. They're not random,
00:19:25.840 --> 00:19:27.750
>> which tells you something made them that
00:19:27.760 --> 00:19:28.310
way,
00:19:28.320 --> 00:19:30.390
>> which tells you something is organizing
00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:32.549
them. And Bolton's conclusion is that
00:19:32.559 --> 00:19:34.549
the shape of the field is intimately
00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:36.630
linked to the motion of the gas it sits
00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:39.029
in. The field gets stretched and
00:19:39.039 --> 00:19:41.110
compressed by the movements associated
00:19:41.120 --> 00:19:43.270
with the cluster's own formation.
00:19:43.280 --> 00:19:45.830
>> So the cluster assembling itself is what
00:19:45.840 --> 00:19:47.510
shapes the magnetism.
00:19:47.520 --> 00:19:49.430
>> That's the argument and it's the first
00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:51.750
observational evidence of it. The same
00:19:51.760 --> 00:19:53.909
violent process that builds a galaxy
00:19:53.919 --> 00:19:57.029
cluster. Gas falling in, sloshing,
00:19:57.039 --> 00:19:59.750
colliding, merging is the process that
00:19:59.760 --> 00:20:01.669
combs the magnetic field into the
00:20:01.679 --> 00:20:03.190
pattern we now see.
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:05.350
>> And that ties into the radio halos
00:20:05.360 --> 00:20:08.230
question. It does. Bolton says they
00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:10.150
believe the mechanism that switches on
00:20:10.160 --> 00:20:12.870
these gigantic radio emissions is linked
00:20:12.880 --> 00:20:14.950
to the formation process of the clusters
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:17.350
themselves. So, the map isn't just a
00:20:17.360 --> 00:20:19.270
pretty picture. It's the evidence for
00:20:19.280 --> 00:20:20.230
the engine.
00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:22.150
>> It's a lovely example of the thing
00:20:22.160 --> 00:20:24.470
radioastronomy does best.
00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:26.310
>> Showing you a structure that is
00:20:26.320 --> 00:20:28.630
completely invisible, is a billion
00:20:28.640 --> 00:20:30.549
lighty years away, is bigger than
00:20:30.559 --> 00:20:32.470
anything else in the universe, and has
00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:34.950
been sitting there the entire time.
00:20:34.960 --> 00:20:37.669
published in astronomy and astrophysics.
00:20:37.679 --> 00:20:40.070
>> Every if you want to know what has hit
00:20:40.080 --> 00:20:42.470
the earth, don't look at the earth
00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:44.310
>> because the earth keeps erasing it
00:20:44.320 --> 00:20:47.270
>> constantly. Play tectonics, volcanism,
00:20:47.280 --> 00:20:50.230
weather, water, erosion, craters get
00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:53.430
buried, distorted, subducted, destroyed.
00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:55.190
The practical consequence is that
00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:57.510
geological evidence for impacts older
00:20:57.520 --> 00:21:00.630
than about 650 million years is
00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:02.230
extremely scarce here.
00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:04.390
>> And the moon doesn't do any of that. No
00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:07.190
plate tectonics, no flowing water, no
00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:09.430
meaningful atmosphere. The moon just
00:21:09.440 --> 00:21:11.510
keeps the receipts. And when you read
00:21:11.520 --> 00:21:13.270
those receipts carefully, there's a
00:21:13.280 --> 00:21:14.070
spike
00:21:14.080 --> 00:21:14.710
>> when
00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:17.590
>> around 800 million years ago, there's a
00:21:17.600 --> 00:21:19.830
surge in large lunar impacts, and it
00:21:19.840 --> 00:21:22.789
shows up in two independent ways. One is
00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:25.350
the estimated ages of big craters,
00:21:25.360 --> 00:21:28.390
including Capernicus, which is 93 km
00:21:28.400 --> 00:21:31.110
across. The other is impact glass.
00:21:31.120 --> 00:21:33.750
Explain impact glass.
00:21:33.760 --> 00:21:35.669
>> When something hits hard enough, the
00:21:35.679 --> 00:21:38.630
heat melts rock. That melt cools into
00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:41.430
glass and the glass locks in a chemical
00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:43.750
time stamp. The Apollo missions brought
00:21:43.760 --> 00:21:45.830
a lot of it home. And when you look at
00:21:45.840 --> 00:21:48.070
the age distribution of that glass, you
00:21:48.080 --> 00:21:51.590
see the same spike at 800 million years.
00:21:51.600 --> 00:21:53.669
>> So, two different methods agree that
00:21:53.679 --> 00:21:55.590
something happened, but nobody knew
00:21:55.600 --> 00:21:56.149
what.
00:21:56.159 --> 00:21:58.070
>> Nobody knew what. That's the puzzle
00:21:58.080 --> 00:22:00.070
that's been sitting there for decades.
00:22:00.080 --> 00:22:02.870
And a new paper led by Dr. William Bachi
00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:04.870
at the Southwest Research Institute in
00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:07.830
Boulder proposes a specific culprit,
00:22:07.840 --> 00:22:08.710
>> which is
00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:11.669
>> an asteroid called Ulia, or rather the
00:22:11.679 --> 00:22:13.669
parent body of the family of asteroids
00:22:13.679 --> 00:22:16.310
we now call Ulia because the object
00:22:16.320 --> 00:22:18.950
itself no longer exists. It was
00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:21.029
catastrophically broken apart in a
00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:22.710
collision in the main belt.
00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:24.390
>> And the location of that breakup
00:22:24.400 --> 00:22:25.190
matters.
00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:27.750
>> The location is everything. It happened
00:22:27.760 --> 00:22:30.310
right next to what's called the J3:1
00:22:30.320 --> 00:22:32.390
resonance with Jupiter. And a resonance
00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:34.710
like that is essentially a gravitational
00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:37.430
trap door. Material that wanders into it
00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:39.830
gets its orbit pumped up by Jupiter and
00:22:39.840 --> 00:22:42.149
flung into the inner solar system.
00:22:42.159 --> 00:22:44.630
>> So the shrapnel had a delivery mechanism
00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:45.830
waiting right there.
00:22:45.840 --> 00:22:48.149
>> It had an open door right next to it.
00:22:48.159 --> 00:22:50.230
And the simulations show what happened
00:22:50.240 --> 00:22:52.470
in two phases. Half the fragments
00:22:52.480 --> 00:22:53.830
reached the resonance almost
00:22:53.840 --> 00:22:55.590
immediately. That's the prompt
00:22:55.600 --> 00:22:58.070
bombardment. planetary shrapnel sprayed
00:22:58.080 --> 00:22:59.909
across the inner solar system
00:22:59.919 --> 00:23:01.190
>> and the other half
00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:04.310
>> over the following 100 to 150 million
00:23:04.320 --> 00:23:06.630
years another quarter of the fragments
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:09.029
drifted into the resonance more slowly
00:23:09.039 --> 00:23:11.270
pushed by something called the Yarovsky
00:23:11.280 --> 00:23:11.990
effect
00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:13.909
>> which is what in plain terms
00:23:13.919 --> 00:23:16.470
>> it's sunlight doing work a rotating
00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:19.029
asteroid absorbs sunlight on one side
00:23:19.039 --> 00:23:22.149
and reraiates that heat as it turns that
00:23:22.159 --> 00:23:25.510
riation gives an incredibly gentle push
00:23:25.520 --> 00:23:28.070
on a human scale, it's nothing. Over a
00:23:28.080 --> 00:23:30.310
100 million years, it can move an
00:23:30.320 --> 00:23:32.549
asteroid's orbit enough to drop it into
00:23:32.559 --> 00:23:33.750
a trapoor.
00:23:33.760 --> 00:23:36.070
>> So, this wasn't one bad afternoon. This
00:23:36.080 --> 00:23:37.590
was a long siege.
00:23:37.600 --> 00:23:39.270
>> That's the reframing I think is
00:23:39.280 --> 00:23:41.909
genuinely important here. Not an event,
00:23:41.919 --> 00:23:44.470
an episode, a bombardment that opened
00:23:44.480 --> 00:23:46.630
suddenly and then kept going for well
00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:48.870
over 100 million years.
00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:50.630
>> And what does that mean for Earth?
00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:52.470
>> Here's the number that changes the scale
00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:55.110
of it. For every large impact recorded
00:23:55.120 --> 00:23:57.750
on the moon, roughly 20 similar or
00:23:57.760 --> 00:24:00.070
larger impacts hit the earth where a
00:24:00.080 --> 00:24:02.390
bigger target with stronger gravity.
00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:03.830
>> 20 to one.
00:24:03.840 --> 00:24:07.110
>> 20 to1. So a spike on the moon means a
00:24:07.120 --> 00:24:09.830
barrage down here. And now look at what
00:24:09.840 --> 00:24:12.149
else was happening around 800 million
00:24:12.159 --> 00:24:14.710
years ago. That is the runup to one of
00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:16.870
the most dramatic climate episodes in
00:24:16.880 --> 00:24:19.830
our planet's history. widespread global
00:24:19.840 --> 00:24:21.909
cooling and major shifts in the
00:24:21.919 --> 00:24:23.029
biosphere.
00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:25.510
>> Is he claiming a causal link?
00:24:25.520 --> 00:24:27.750
>> He's careful. And I want to be careful,
00:24:27.760 --> 00:24:30.470
too. Baky's phrasing is that given the
00:24:30.480 --> 00:24:32.870
peak of this barrage coincides with a
00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:35.350
period of widespread cooling and major
00:24:35.360 --> 00:24:37.909
shifts in our biosphere. It is tempting
00:24:37.919 --> 00:24:40.230
to suggest the former produced the
00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:43.269
latter. That is a hypothesis flagged as
00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:46.390
tempting, not a conclusion. Because so
00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:49.190
far only one impact has ever been firmly
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:51.669
tied to a biological outcome.
00:24:51.679 --> 00:24:54.950
>> Pick shaloo 66 million years ago. The
00:24:54.960 --> 00:24:57.430
end of the dinosaurs. That's the one.
00:24:57.440 --> 00:24:59.590
Everything else is inference.
00:24:59.600 --> 00:25:02.070
>> So how would you ever test this?
00:25:02.080 --> 00:25:04.549
>> This is my favorite part of the paper
00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:06.310
and it's the reason to keep an eye on
00:25:06.320 --> 00:25:09.029
this story. We have asteroid samples on
00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:11.750
Earth right now. Hayabusa 2 brought
00:25:11.760 --> 00:25:14.070
material back from Ryugu in December
00:25:14.080 --> 00:25:17.350
2020. Osiris Rex brought Bennu back in
00:25:17.360 --> 00:25:21.430
September 2023. Both are under analysis.
00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:24.310
>> And if they carry the Ulia fingerprint,
00:25:24.320 --> 00:25:27.029
>> if the minology matches the Ulleia
00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:29.510
family, then we are holding in a
00:25:29.520 --> 00:25:31.830
laboratory physical samples of the
00:25:31.840 --> 00:25:33.990
material that rained on the inner solar
00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:37.590
system 800 million years ago. That would
00:25:37.600 --> 00:25:40.470
turn a dynamical model into a direct
00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:42.149
compositional record.
00:25:42.159 --> 00:25:44.710
>> That's a remarkable thought. Brains in a
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:47.190
lab in Japan and Texas. That might be
00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:49.510
pieces of the thing that helped freeze
00:25:49.520 --> 00:25:50.630
the Earth.
00:25:50.640 --> 00:25:52.470
>> Published in the Planetary Science
00:25:52.480 --> 00:25:55.430
Journal by Botkkey with Vocritzky, Dyke
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:56.549
House, and Zelner.
00:25:56.559 --> 00:25:58.470
>> Great. And our next story comes with a
00:25:58.480 --> 00:25:59.990
deadline wherever in the world you're
00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:00.789
listening.
00:26:00.799 --> 00:26:02.149
>> What's the urgency?
00:26:02.159 --> 00:26:04.950
>> The moon. First quarter was yesterday,
00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:08.549
the 21st. Tonight it's a waxing gibbus
00:26:08.559 --> 00:26:10.310
and every night from here it gets
00:26:10.320 --> 00:26:12.870
brighter and stays up longer building to
00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:15.510
the buck moon full at 4:36 in the
00:26:15.520 --> 00:26:18.870
afternoon UTC on Wednesday the 29th.
00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:21.269
That's 10:36 in the morning eastern time
00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:24.149
in the states and 12:36 on Thursday
00:26:24.159 --> 00:26:26.070
morning for us in Australia.
00:26:26.080 --> 00:26:27.909
>> And that matters because of what's
00:26:27.919 --> 00:26:28.870
peaking.
00:26:28.880 --> 00:26:31.909
>> The southern delta Aquarius peak falls
00:26:31.919 --> 00:26:34.310
on the 30th effectively the same night
00:26:34.320 --> 00:26:36.630
as the full moon. So, the peak is going
00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:38.710
to be washed out, which means the
00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:40.230
practical advice is the same for
00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:42.950
everybody. Don't wait for peak night.
00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:44.950
This week is your window in the small
00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:46.950
hours while the moon still sets and
00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:49.430
leaves you real darkness before dawn.
00:26:49.440 --> 00:26:51.909
>> And this is a shower that favors us.
00:26:51.919 --> 00:26:54.549
>> It does. From Australia, New Zealand,
00:26:54.559 --> 00:26:56.870
and southern Africa, the radiant sits
00:26:56.880 --> 00:26:59.430
high close to overhead, which is why the
00:26:59.440 --> 00:27:01.909
shower gets underrated in the north.
00:27:01.919 --> 00:27:04.390
Under genuinely dark skies, you might
00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:07.590
see 15 to 20 an hour. And they're lovely
00:27:07.600 --> 00:27:10.310
meteors, long, graceful streaks rather
00:27:10.320 --> 00:27:12.310
than quick flashes, and known for
00:27:12.320 --> 00:27:14.950
persistent trains, those glowing trails
00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:16.870
that hang in the air for a second or two
00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:17.909
afterwards.
00:27:17.919 --> 00:27:19.830
>> And northern listeners aren't shut out
00:27:19.840 --> 00:27:20.870
of this one.
00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:22.630
>> Not at all. And I want to be clear about
00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:24.549
that because this shower gets written
00:27:24.559 --> 00:27:27.110
off in the north too readily. If you're
00:27:27.120 --> 00:27:29.269
in North America, particularly the
00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:31.669
southern states, Texas, Florida,
00:27:31.679 --> 00:27:34.149
Arizona, the Gulf Coast, the Delta
00:27:34.159 --> 00:27:37.190
Aquar.
00:27:37.200 --> 00:27:39.190
The radiant sits low in your southern
00:27:39.200 --> 00:27:41.750
sky rather than overhead, so you'll see
00:27:41.760 --> 00:27:44.070
fewer of them, but the ones you do catch
00:27:44.080 --> 00:27:46.630
travel long paths across the sky, and
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:48.870
they can be spectacular. Best time is
00:27:48.880 --> 00:27:51.269
after midnight through to dawn. Southern
00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:53.750
Europe, the Mediterranean, North Africa,
00:27:53.760 --> 00:27:56.549
same deal. And where do people look?
00:27:56.559 --> 00:27:59.029
>> The radiant is in Aquarius near the star
00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:02.149
Delta Aquari. Use fulomalt to find the
00:28:02.159 --> 00:28:04.950
region. But honestly, don't stare at the
00:28:04.960 --> 00:28:07.590
radiant. Lie back, take in as much sky
00:28:07.600 --> 00:28:10.149
as you can, and let them come to you.
00:28:10.159 --> 00:28:13.669
Parent body is suspected to be comet 96P
00:28:13.679 --> 00:28:16.070
Mack Holtz. There are also the Alpha
00:28:16.080 --> 00:28:18.470
Capricornids building to the 30th and
00:28:18.480 --> 00:28:21.990
31st. Far fewer meteors, but famous for
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:24.470
slow, brilliant fireballs that can punch
00:28:24.480 --> 00:28:26.070
straight through moonlight.
00:28:26.080 --> 00:28:27.909
>> And for the north, there's something
00:28:27.919 --> 00:28:30.070
considerably bigger coming.
00:28:30.080 --> 00:28:32.070
>> There is. And if you're listening in
00:28:32.080 --> 00:28:34.070
North America or Europe, you should be
00:28:34.080 --> 00:28:36.549
planning for this now. Two things land
00:28:36.559 --> 00:28:39.029
together on the 12th of August. First,
00:28:39.039 --> 00:28:41.350
the Perciads peak. And this year, the
00:28:41.360 --> 00:28:43.830
moon is new that same day, which means a
00:28:43.840 --> 00:28:46.470
properly dark sky. That is the best
00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:48.950
perciate year in some time. And the
00:28:48.960 --> 00:28:49.830
second,
00:28:49.840 --> 00:28:53.110
>> a total solar eclipse, the first on
00:28:53.120 --> 00:28:56.389
mainland Europe since 1999 and the first
00:28:56.399 --> 00:29:00.070
in Spain since 1905. Totality sweeps
00:29:00.080 --> 00:29:02.470
across the Arctic, Greenland, Iceland,
00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:04.950
and northern Spain. And in Spain, it
00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:07.110
happens close to sunset with the sun
00:29:07.120 --> 00:29:09.510
only a few degrees above the horizon,
00:29:09.520 --> 00:29:11.830
which could be extraordinary.
00:29:11.840 --> 00:29:14.149
>> North America doesn't get totality this
00:29:14.159 --> 00:29:15.029
time.
00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:17.830
>> No. And I won't oversell it, but there
00:29:17.840 --> 00:29:20.470
is a real partial eclipse across much of
00:29:20.480 --> 00:29:23.110
the continent. Alaska gets the deepest
00:29:23.120 --> 00:29:26.070
view near sunrise. Atlantic Canada gets
00:29:26.080 --> 00:29:28.389
roughly half the sun covered at maximum
00:29:28.399 --> 00:29:30.710
in the afternoon. New England and the
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:32.950
northeastern states get a smaller bite.
00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:34.789
And there's some coverage visible right
00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:37.350
across every Canadian province and the
00:29:37.360 --> 00:29:39.430
northern contiguous states.
00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:41.669
>> So, dig out the glasses. Dig out the
00:29:41.679 --> 00:29:44.230
Eclipse glasses from 2024 and check
00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:47.750
their ISO12312-2
00:29:47.760 --> 00:29:50.389
certified. It will not get dark. Even
00:29:50.399 --> 00:29:53.269
with 50% coverage, the remaining sun is
00:29:53.279 --> 00:29:55.430
blindingly bright, so there is never a
00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:57.830
safe moment to look without protection.
00:29:57.840 --> 00:29:59.909
And a lovely detail, if you're standing
00:29:59.919 --> 00:30:01.990
in the path of totality in Spain or
00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:04.310
Iceland, there's a genuine chance of a
00:30:04.320 --> 00:30:06.789
percied streaking past during those two
00:30:06.799 --> 00:30:09.750
minutes. And tonight for everyone,
00:30:09.760 --> 00:30:11.909
>> the Milky Way. From the southern
00:30:11.919 --> 00:30:14.310
hemisphere, the galactic core is riding
00:30:14.320 --> 00:30:16.789
high overhead right now. One of the real
00:30:16.799 --> 00:30:19.110
privileges of our winter and it's at its
00:30:19.120 --> 00:30:21.430
best. From the northern hemisphere, it's
00:30:21.440 --> 00:30:24.070
lower in the south towards Sagittarius.
00:30:24.080 --> 00:30:25.750
But on a dark night, it's still
00:30:25.760 --> 00:30:28.630
magnificent. And before dawn, Saturn and
00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:30.710
Mars are in the eastern sky for both
00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:31.909
hemispheres.
00:30:31.919 --> 00:30:33.750
>> One more thing before we go.
00:30:33.760 --> 00:30:36.470
>> The launch watchers. SpaceX is targeting
00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:39.190
Thursday the 23rd for Starship flight
00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:42.470
13. Window opening at 6:45 in the
00:30:42.480 --> 00:30:45.190
evening Eastern time. That's 5:45
00:30:45.200 --> 00:30:48.230
central, 3:45 Pacific and Friday
00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:51.669
morning/4 to 9 for us in Australia. 20
00:30:51.679 --> 00:30:54.389
Starling V3 satellites aboard. Second
00:30:54.399 --> 00:30:56.310
flight of the V3 vehicle.
00:30:56.320 --> 00:30:57.510
>> Dead an alarm.
00:30:57.520 --> 00:30:59.510
>> And as always with Starship, check
00:30:59.520 --> 00:31:01.669
before you commit. The date has already
00:31:01.679 --> 00:31:04.630
moved twice. That's Astronomy Daily for
00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:07.510
Wednesday, the 22nd of July. A mechanic
00:31:07.520 --> 00:31:10.230
on its way to geostationary orbit. A
00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:13.029
rocket stage 2 weeks from making a new
00:31:13.039 --> 00:31:15.990
crater. And 23 astronomers asking the
00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:18.950
world to watch. Two stars that died in
00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:21.110
sequence and left their remnants side by
00:31:21.120 --> 00:31:23.990
side. The first magnetic map of a galaxy
00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:26.310
cluster. And an asteroid breakup that
00:31:26.320 --> 00:31:27.990
may have been raining down on us while
00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:30.870
the Earth froze. Donotes, sources, and
00:31:30.880 --> 00:31:33.669
links are all at astronomyaily.io,
00:31:33.679 --> 00:31:36.230
and you can find us at astrodaily pod
00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:37.669
across the socials.
00:31:37.679 --> 00:31:39.669
>> If you enjoy the show, a rating or
00:31:39.679 --> 00:31:41.669
review genuinely helps other people find
00:31:41.679 --> 00:31:43.750
us. Astronomy Daily is part of the
00:31:43.760 --> 00:31:46.070
byes.com podcast network.
00:31:46.080 --> 00:31:47.110
>> I'm Anna.
00:31:47.120 --> 00:31:49.509
>> And I'm Avery. Get outside this week. It
00:31:49.519 --> 00:31:50.950
won't be dark for long.
00:31:50.960 --> 00:31:55.430
>> Clear skies.
00:31:55.440 --> 00:32:03.269
Stories told
00:32:03.279 --> 00:32:11.190
stories told
00:32:11.200 --> 00:32:13.840
stories